Why are the RFU humiliating England?

Letting English fans sing their own National anthem on the 6th February 2016 at Murrayfield is not a controversial idea. The English are only asking to be treated the same as Scottish, Welsh and Irish fans who are allowed to sing their National anthems as a nation.

The campaign group ‘England in my Heart’ are driving their campaign vehicle from Colchester in Essex to Murrayfield, Edinburgh on Friday the 5th February to show the RFU that English fans want ‘Jerusalem’ played as their National anthem. It has become blatantly obvious that only the English rugby players sing the British Royal anthem, ‘God Save the Queen’, at international games, whilst the other Home Nations sing their Own National anthems. The Rugby World Cup highlighted this for all to see.

Simply put, God Save the Queen is not the English anthem. ‘Jerusalem’ is widely recognised as the English National anthem.

Eddie Bone, Campaign Director for England in my Heart stated ‘It is of concern that the Rugby Football Union appears to want to persist in discriminating against England and English fans by treating the nations of the UK differently and not equally. If they want the Royal anthem, ‘God save the Queen’ to be sung then they could play it after the Home Nations have both sung there individual anthems. ‘God save the Queen’ could then be the uniting anthem.

The Campaign team are available for interviews on the 5th / 6th February 2016. Please call 07980667732.

*The 2011 Census showed that over 60% of the people of England identify themselves as English only, so RFU are not representing the English nation in the best possible way.

At long last there will be a debate in the House of Commons (on the 13th January 2016) on whether England should have her own national anthem played at sporting events.

Please can you contact your local MP (Telephone call, e-mail or letter) and express your support for English sporting teams being allowed to play the English National Anthem. Contacting your MP will help!!!

Please take the time to open the video link and then share it with family, friends and colleagues.

Then please ask them also to contact their MP as well, it will help.

We need to show that there is overwhelming support from the public on this.

The team from England in my Heart have been using the following quote:

“ ‘God save the Queen’ is the Royal Anthem, the UK Anthem, it is not the English National Anthem. The English sporting teams need to find its national pride just as Wales, Scotland and Ireland have accomplished, embracing ‘Jerusalem would be a great start. If people want to play ‘God save the Queen maybe it could be played after the National Anthems of each country as a unifying symbol”.

We want an English National Anthem, so that the people of England can proudly sing together a song that gives them a collective identity and meaning.

We endeavour to influence politicians in order to bring about a national anthem for England.

We endeavour to influence England’s sporting associations so that they have the courage to play Jerusalem.

We endeavour to encourage debate so that the people of England want to sing their own national anthem

We promote Jerusalem as the English National Anthem because unofficially it already is, and has been used at the Commonwealth games to represent England.

We want to highlight that Jerusalem should be sung at the Rugby World cup as the official English national anthem.

*’England in my Heart’ is a single-issue campaign and is not affiliated to any political party.

]]>https://englandmyheart.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/national-anthem-for-england/feed/1England in my Heart banner 1.1stemorrisEngland in my HeartIf England players must sing the national anthem at the football World Cup, it should not be ‘God Save the Queen’https://englandmyheart.wordpress.com/2015/10/15/if-england-players-must-sing-the-national-anthem-at-the-football-world-cup-it-should-not-be-god-save-the-queen-2/
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With the football World Cup approaching, England manager Roy Hodgson is insisting that his players sing the national anthem before each game. We asked a number of democracy experts to share their views on Hodgson’s rule. In the first of a series of posts on this issue, we find a broad consensus that while singing the anthem may be a positive sign of patriotic feeling, ‘God Save the Queen’ is inappropriate for various reasons, including its religious and monarchist sentiment, and because it is a UK anthem rather than England’s alone.

Roy Hodgson wants all of his players to sing the national anthem before games. Credit: Alexandra Savicheva, CC BY-NC 2.0

David McCrone, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of EdinburghGod Save the Queen/King is a dirge, invented by Thomas Arne at the time of the Jacobite Rising in 1745 (hence the line ‘Rebellious Scots to Crush’ in the second stanza, no longer sung). It is quite unworthy of being the English national anthem, alongside something as good as Blake’s Jerusalem. This has the merit of not only being a good tune, but lacking in vainglorious triumphalism like Land of Hope and Glory.

Mind you, we Scots have to make do with some awful stuff, including Flower of Scotland, and Scotland the Brave. The only peoples of these islands who have anything like the proper thing are the Welsh with Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land of my Fathers). So it’s about time that England recovered a great tune with proper words, and radical sentiments. ‘Til we have built Jerusalem on England’s Green and Pleasant Land’: unbeatable.

Graham Smith, Chief Executive Officer, Republic
Hodgson makes the common enough mistake of associating patriotism with the monarchy. Yes, he’s asking players to sing the ‘national’ anthem, but the dirge in question is not an anthem to the nation but a song about the monarchy. Patriotism is not a loyalty to state institutions but a loyalty to the nation – and it has to be a very personal thing, not something pre-determined by a football coach. A love of one’s country is clearly going to be felt in different ways by different people in this multi-cultural age.

Clearly any atheist or republican – and there are millions of both in this country – would think twice before singing God Save the Queen. A national anthem should be about the nation, a celebration of the people and our achievements – yet God Save the Queen barely mentions the country at all. Instead we are beseeched to call upon God (not sure which one) to save an 88 year old monarch. It is a song born from 18th century politics that has no place in a modern society.

It is also an anthem for the whole union, not just England. As part of that union debates breaking away perhaps England should think more about its own unique identity and how that can be celebrated in a more meaningful way through our ‘national’ sports teams.

Sunder Katwala, Director of British Future
England will be the only one of 32 nations to play in the World Cup without a state to its name. Union Jacks fluttered around the Wembley stands when Bobby Moore lifted the Jules Rimet trophy in 1966. Since football came home for Euro ‘96, and the flag of St George came out, the English have increasingly appreciated that being British and English are not the same thing; something that the Scots and the Welsh always knew.

So God Save the Queen remains the right anthem for Team GB, the brand under which the UK compete at the Olympics (despite Northern Irish sensitivities). We will keep our constitutional monarchy for as long as the broad social consensus in favour of it remains strong. But it helps neither Union nor Crown for one British nation to appropriate the civic anthem of our multinational state. An English anthem for our young, modern English team is overdue. It probably can’t be Football’s Coming Home. So Jerusalem would fit the bill perfectly.

Michael Kenny, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London and author of The Politics of English NationhoodThe idea that footballers have to prove their patriotic fervour by singing along to a tune which emerged, in true British style, as ‘the national anthem’ because the political establishment decreed that it was a hallowed custom rather than an invented tradition, is a familiar part of the media hoopla that we have come to associate with any England World Cup campaign.

But this tiredest of clichés could be turned on its head and transformed into a game-changing cultural moment if Roy Hodgson were to call instead for an English anthem to be sung by his team. Why not advocate that the young men, and women, who represent England at international sporting events get the chance to sing a resonant number that celebrates the iconic power of a sense of collective inheritance, and holds out the prospect of a radically re-made and reborn England. In an era of seismic change and accompanying uncertainties, and when a team that hails from a range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds suddenly becomes the focus for a nation’s excessive hopes and secret fears, surely we need William Blake’s Jerusalem not a clapped-out, energy-sapping dirge?

Those who think that an English anthem might play into the hands of nationalist enemies of the UK are seriously out of kilter with the national mood. Polling suggests that such a move would win the support of most English people, and would find favour with non-English peoples in the UK who have long been fed up with the English penchant for mixing up Anglo and British identities. More importantly still, as evidence grows that more English people are increasingly responsive to an English sense of peoplehood, and as this emergent sense of national sovereignty is currently being addressed in political terms only by UKIP, there is a growing need to provide new forms of meaningful recognition for English pride and identity within a reconstituted United Kingdom – one reason perhaps why some politicians, including the Prime Minister, have begun to support calls for an English anthem.

Democratic, lyrical and a thumpingly good tune; the echoes of Jerusalem might even make the penalties more bearable…

Norman Bonney, Emeritus Professor at Edinburgh Napier University and Honorary President of Edinburgh Secular SocietyIt is increasingly unjustifiable to expect team members to actively engage in singing the national anthem at international sporting events because of its invocation of a supernatural being. Social survey evidence now suggests that 19 per cent of the population say ‘there definitely is not a God or some higher power’ and 16 per cent say ‘there probably is not a God or some higher power’. Such figures are even higher among younger people who are generally more disengaged from religious faith. To impose participation in singing or even listening to the anthem is unworthy of a diverse liberal society.

The UK, and England, clearly need new national songs that reflect contemporary values. Nor is it justifiable for England, alone, to appropriate the UK anthem. The monarchy website claims that only the first verse is used on official occasions – luckily this excludes the 1745 additional verse about ‘crushing the rebellious Scots’.

Andy Mycock, Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Huddersfield
Roy Hodgson’s request that those taking the field to represent England in the forthcoming World Cup matches must sing the ‘national’ anthem raises a rather awkward question – which nation’s anthem? Together with others, I have long-argued that there is an urgent need for those representing England to sing an English national anthem other than God Save the Queen.

The current arrangements merely confirm an enduring Anglo-British myopia that, although slowly unravelling, still offends those from outside of England across the rest of the UK and politicises the British national anthem. This oversight needs to be addressed as the World Cup will in many other ways offer further evidence of a growing popular ascription to an English nationalism that has much to laud.

In my life time I have witnessed the popular embrace and normalisation of English patriotism during sporting occasions such as the World Cup, with the Cross of St George now flown with pride from many houses, cars, and pubs. Indeed it has become such a banal feature of public life in England that it now barely raises comment. Why not supplement this outpouring of sporting pride (and fatalism) with an English national anthem – Jerusalem being the most popular choice – that players and football patriots alike can bellow with pride?

Colin Copus, Professor of Local Politics, De Montfort University
Roy Hodgson is absolutely right to insist the England team sing a national anthem and with gusto. The sight of more demonstrative nations not only belting out their anthem, but covering their hearts with their right hands and even standing to attention, is testament to their commitment to their country’s footballing cause. Contrast that to the mumbling and embarrassed downward glances and shuffling of feet that often accompanies the England team’s rendition and we can see the winners already.

But, the real problem for the England team is that they sing the wrong anthem: the British anthem. When was the last time a Scottish or Welsh team sang with gusto the British anthem and yet the England team and nation is refused the right to hear its own national anthem at exclusively English occasions. Personally I prefer a re-written version of There’ll Always be an England, removing the references to Empire and the colour blue (no blue in the English flag), but by popular accord Jerusalem should be sang by the English team: loudly and proudly. Even re-inserting into the British anthem the bit about ‘rebellious Scots to crush’ won’t do, because, well they’re not there are they. Nope, Jerusalem it must be and not just at the World Cup, but every time an English team plays anywhere and anything.

Should English sports teams have an English anthem?

David Cameron apparently thinks so, and his choice would be Jerusalem. What song would you like to hear before matches and during medal ceremonies?

Divers Tom Daley and Max Brick were part of England’s Commonwealth Games team in Delhi that used Jerusalem as an anthem.

David Cameron is apparently ready to back a campaign for England to have its own anthem for sports teams, and his personal choice would be Jerusalem, according to the British Future thinktank and the ConservativeHome website.

Since 2003 the England cricket team have routinely emerged from pavilions to Sir Hubert Parry’s music set to William Blake’s poem – except at Lord’s, which does not play music through its sound system. English medal winners at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010 showed off their prizes proudly to Jerusalem after it replaced Land of Hope and Glory as the team’s song – to the confusion of one competitor, the butterfly champion Fran Halsall, who started singing the old anthem on the podium before realising her mistake.

But the England rugby and football teams still stand chests puffed out to God Save the Queen. Last month the Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland, who has regularly backed campaigns for England to have its own sporting anthem to rival Scotland’s Flower of Scotland and Wales’s Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land of My Fathers), proposed that Euro 2012 should be the last international football tournament at which England compete without an English anthem, even if God Save the Queen remains the official one for UK teams.

Image caption The English team is in South Africa and some say they need an English anthem

Parliament should debate the case for an “English national anthem” that fans can sing at sporting events like the World Cup, a Lib Dem MP has said.

Greg Mulholland said it was “frustrating” to hear fans sing God Save The Queen in South Africa as it was the anthem for the United Kingdom.

He told MPs there should be a “properly established” anthem for English teams.

For the first time, Jerusalem will be played to celebrate English winners at this year’s Commonwealth Games.

The anthem was chosen for medal ceremonies at the event in Delhi – ahead of the God Save The Queen and Land of Hope and Glory – after a public vote backed by Commonwealth Games England.

Historic decision

Mr Mulholland raised the issue during Business Questions in Parliament, where the government sets out future business for the weeks ahead and MPs can call for debates on chosen subjects.

He has raised the issue before, claiming that English fans are at a disadvantage compared to their counterparts in Wales and Scotland.

While Wales has its own national anthem, Scottish football and rugby fans have sung the unofficial Flower of Scotland since the 1990s and this was chosen for the Scottish team at the Commonwealth Games following a similar public vote.

Mr Mulholland told MPs “it was wonderful to see the Cross of St George flying” after England’s victory over Slovenia, which booked the team’s place in the last 16 of the competition.

But he added: “However, it is still frustrating to see England singing the wrong anthem, the anthem of the United Kingdom.

“Following the historic decision to use Jerusalem at the Commonwealth Games, can we now have a debate about properly establishing an English national anthem for when England compete as opposed to the UK.”

In response, Leader of the House of Commons Sir George Young said he had raised an “important issue”.

Decisions on which anthems should be played are taken by national sporting associations.

March 28, 2015

If you’re not British, you may only be vaguely aware of the song “Jerusalem.” But the tune and lyrics are very familiar to the people of England.

It is England’s unofficial national anthem, like “God Bless America” is in the United States.

Some Brits have urged that “Jerusalem” be made the official national anthem of England.

The song was first performed on March 28, 1916, during World War I, at a patriotic “Fight for Right” concert at Queen’s Hall in London.

Its melody was composed that year by Sir Hubert Parry, one of England’s most famous composers.

The lyrics are more than a century older than the music.

They come from the preface English poet and artist William Blake wrote for his epic poem Milton, which was first published in late 1810 or early 1811.

The first two paragraphs of Blake’s preface are an obtuse rant that criticizes, among other things, the “Hirelings in the Camp, the Court, & the University: who would if they could for ever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal War.”

The second part of the preface, written in verse, are the words used as the lyrics for the song “Jerusalem”:

“And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark satanic mills?

I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England’s green and pleasant land.”

The first and last lines of the song are widely known and often quoted, as is the phrase “dark satanic mills” — a poetic expression of Blake’s opinion about the smoke-belching, labor-abusing factories of the Industrial Revolution.

The song also helped popularize the phrase “chariot of fire”, which Blake took from the King James Version of the Bible.

The idea of using Blake’s verses from the preface to Milton as song lyrics was suggested to Parry by English Poet Laureate Robert Seymour Bridges.

Bridges envisioned the song as a moving piece of musical propaganda, part of the patriotic, pro-war “Fight for Right” movement designed to help revive public support for Britain’s involvement in World War I.

Hubert Parry had a somewhat different vision for how his song would be remembered.

His wife, Elizabeth, was involved in the women’s suffrage movement and he strongly supported giving women the right to vote.

And, although it is not technically a Christian hymn, it is often sung as one at many churches in England.

For decades, “Jerusalem” has also been sung by audiences at the end of the “Last Night of the Proms,” the final concert in the series of annual “Henry Wood Promenade Concerts” presented by the BBC.

The song is also frequently sung at cricket and rugby games, like the “Star-Spangled Banner” is sung at American baseball games.

In recent years it has become popular with environmentalists for the lyrics invoking the ideal of a “green and pleasant land.”

It’s also said to have been a favorite of an earlier brand of nature lovers in the so-called “Naturist Movement” (i.e., nudists), due to a legend that a visitor to William Blake’s home once found him and his wife sunning themselves nude in their garden.

Hundreds of recordings of “Jerusalem” have been made over the decades. Many have been posted on YouTube.

I first learned to appreciate this anthem as a child watching the movie Chariots of Fire with my father. My father was an avid runner in the early 80’s and still continues to run to this day; he also is a devout Christian who seeks to earnestly honor the Sabbath Day. Clearly the movie Chariots of Fire would resonate deeply with him and become a Dixon family classic to be watched over and over. I never heard the anthem Jerusalem in a different context while growing up in Southern California and frankly, I never really understood the lyrics and didn’t bother to investigate.

Consequently I missed the great historical significance of this hymn and the fervent nationalistic overtones that this song has for England as the unofficial English Anthem. To briefly display that context, the following YouTube clips show the anthem being played at Prince William and Kate’s wedding in 2011 and as a part of the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games:

Just recently, I stumbled upon this anthem again, only to be fascinated by the history of the song and the great intellectual content of the lyrics for an historical geographer. The music was written by Parry in 1916 using the lyrics from an 1804 poem by William Blake entitled “And Did Those Feet in Ancient Times.”

And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among those dark Satanic Mills?

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land

The lyrics are obvious rich in religious overtones, alluding to an apocryphal legend of Jesus visiting England as a youth that was immensely popular in England centuries ago. Some even believe that every medieval city in Europe was planned as a mini model of Jerusalem. Although there are many fascinating angles, I would like to discuss just a few of the geographical imaginations embedding in this poem/anthem: the symbolic usage of Jerusalem and natural landscapes as metaphors of holiness and moral purity.

JERUSALEM AS A SYMBOL OF HOLINESS

This map that exaggerates vertical changes is one of my favorites of the area around Jerusalem. The topography of this area is deeply embedded into some religious metaphors. The Dead Sea rift valley (in parts 1000 feet below sea level) is a symbol for moral decay, and separation from God, where Jerusalem on the high ground (over 2500 feet), is a symbol for Heaven and communion with God.

The New Testament story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30) draws heavily on this topographic reality to convey spiritual significance. “And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.” The road from Jerusalem to Jericho given the massive elevation change and the local topography takes on added significance and I’ll offer two possible interpretations: 1) Leaving Heaven at birth, all people are thrown into a moral existence away from the presence of God and spiritually are battered and bruised and are helped along the way. 2) The man traveling the road represents anyone who has spiritually strayed and consequently is smitten by the unfortunate consequences of his actions but who can be resuscitated with help. I share this Biblical passage to highlight the literary symbolism that Jerusalem evokes for those that draw upon Judeo-Christian traditions: Jerusalem is analogous to Heaven.

NATURAL LANDSCAPES AS SYMBOLS OF MORAL PURITY

The questions about a possible visit by Christ to England are all rhetorical and there is no call to action until the possible presence of the Savior is juxtaposed with the “Satanic Mills.” There are many theories as to what these Satanic Mills may be, but given that it words were first penned in the early 1800s, it is safe to venture that that the author saw some of the negative effects of the Industrial Revolution and saw some analogies between the technological advances that transformed England with spiritual digression and moral decay as a poor urban underclass swelled in the factories and mills. Just like Jerusalem, pristine natural landscapes are another dominant metaphor in this anthem; pre-industrial landscapes are aligned with holiness and purity; an moral normative landscape. The Satanic Mills pollute the “pleasant pastures” and “clouded hills” of England, despoiling the innate goodness of the land and people. Just as Adam and Eve fell from the Garden of Eden (a lush natural landscape of verdant beauty), England’s pastures and hills are threatened by the mills and factories.

NATIONALISM, HOLINESS AND MORAL PURITY

So why did this song resonate so strongly in 1916? The British support for the Great War was waning, and the poem was put to music specifically to rally the English to sacrifice more, and to feel an even stronger connection to country. The memory of past greatness, in in the case of Jerusalem, to allusion to potential divinity, heightens the importance of place. Heritage tourism evokes past events of a place as a rationale for preserving, maintaining and defending a particular historical legacy and narrative, as does this rousing national anthem/hymn.

The idea that Jesus could possibly have been in England during his mortal ministry fascinated nationalistic English Christians of the 18th and 19th centuries and the appeal of this song is in part a reverberation of that fascination. Even if it was a slim possibility, the song speaks of a yearning for it to be true, since the England that they cherish would become all the more spiritually important; Christ’s presence would have sanctified England just as it made the city of Jerusalem holy. Heritage tourism hinges on having visitors connect the importance of past events with current places. This imaged divine past is but one reason why the anthem Jerusalem is so captivating.